Also 7 squob(b)le, 7–8 squable. [See prec.]
1. intr. To wrangle or brawl; to engage in a petty quarrel or dispute; to argue disagreeably or with heat. Freq. const. about, for, over, etc.
1604. Shaks., Oth., II. iii. 281. Drunke? And speake Parrat? And squabble? Swagger?
a. 1677. Barrow, Serm., Wks. 1716. I. 171. It agreeth to children … to squabble; to women of meanest rank to scold.
1693. Humours Town, 46. They are launching out into the Sea of Politicks,… squabling to be Burgesses.
1730. Lett. to Sir W. Strickland rel. to Coal Trade, 28. To deliver all the Coals out of the Ship first, and then squabble about the price.
1789. Wolcot (P. Pindar), Ep. to falling Minister, Wks. 1812, II. 118. Good places For which so oft the people squabble.
1839. Thackeray, Fatal Boots, Dec. Her temper was dreadful, and we used to be squabbling from morning till night!
1873. Mrs. Whitney, Other Girls, xxi. They’ve been squabbling over it these five minutes.
b. Const. with (another or others).
1655. Capel, Tentations, IV. iii. 27. As brethren out of envy will squabble one with another about a party coloured coat.
1660. H. More, Myst. Godl., To Rdr. 15. My forbearing … to squable with every petty Sect.
1677. W. Hughes, Man of Sin, II. ix. 148. The Devil comes again, and squabbles with him.
1740. Cibber, Apol. (1756), I. 290. They had forgot their former fatal mistake of squabling with their actors.
1831. Trelawny, Adv. Younger Son, I. 156. A yâk, or little cow, which was squabbling with the children about some fruit.
1889. Cornh. Mag., Feb., 118. I feel too miserable and too dejected to squabble with Frances.
c. transf. Of a stream. (Cf BRAWL v.1 3.)
1868. G. Macdonald, R. Falconer, I. 241. On the grassy bank of the gently-flowing river, at the other edge of whose level the little canal squabbled along.
2. trans. In Typog., to throw (type) out of line; to disarrange or disorder; to twist or skew so as to mix the lines.
1674. Blount, Glossogr. (ed. 4), Squobble, is a term among Printers, when the Compositor has set a Form, before it is Imposed, some lines happen to fall out of their order, they say it is squobled.
1683. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., Printing, xxii. ¶ 3. He spreads and Squabbles the Shanks of the Letters between his Fingers askew. Ibid., 391. A Page or Form is Squabbled when the Letter of one or more Lines are got into any of the adjacent Lines; or that the Letter or Letters are twisted about out of their square Position.
1784. B. Franklin, in Ann. Reg., Chron. (1817), 385. Every page of it being squabbled, and the whole ready to fall into pye.
1888. Jacobi, Printers’ Vocab., 130. Squabble, to break or upset type and thus make ‘pie’ of it.
b. intr. Of type: To get into disorder.
1683. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., Printing, xxii. ¶ 2. Letter is less subject to Squabble between Line and Line … than it is between side and side.
Hence Squabbled ppl. a.
1886. Science, VIII. 254. The letters do not range well, giving an irregular or ‘squabbled’ appearance to the line.
1888. Jacobi, Printers’ Vocab., 130. Squashed, another term for ‘squabbled’ type.
